---
title: "ApeCoin DAO"
url: "https://caper.network/wiki/daos/social/apecoin-dao"
updated: 2026-09-01
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# ApeCoin DAO

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| **Name** | ApeCoin DAO _(dissolved 2025)_ |
| **Type** | NFT-ecosystem / community DAO governing the [APE](https://apecoin.com/) token, tied to the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Yuga Labs orbit (Ethereum) |
| **Token** | APE — 1,000,000,000 fixed supply, non-mintable and non-burnable; launched March 2022 |
| **Administration** | The Ape Foundation, with an elected _Special Council_ ("the Board") overseeing its administrators |
| **Governance** | Ape Improvement Proposals (AIPs) debated on the ApeCoin forum, then ratified by [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/apecoin.eth) token-weighted vote |
| **Status** | Dissolved by [AIP-596](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/06/06/yuga-labs-proposes-scrapping-apecoin-dao-launching-apeco) (June 2025) — treasury, IP, and contracts transferred to **ApeCo**, a Yuga Labs-controlled company |
| **Related** | [How DAOs fail](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/analysis/how-daos-fail), [Exit rights](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights), [Treasury management](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/treasury/dao-treasury-management), [ConstitutionDAO](/wiki/daos/social/constitutiondao), [The Sandbox DAO](/wiki/daos/social/the-sandbox-dao) |

**ApeCoin DAO** was, for three years, one of the largest and most-watched consumer DAOs in crypto — the community that governed the [APE](https://etherscan.io/token/0x4d224452801ACEd8B2F0aebE155379bb5D594381) token and its share of the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem built by [Yuga Labs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuga_Labs). It is also the clearest case study of a very 2025 ending: rather than being drained by an exploit or fading into [quiet abandonment](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/analysis/how-daos-fail), in June 2025 its own token-holders voted — by a reported **99.66%** — to [dissolve the DAO entirely](https://www.ainvest.com/news/apecoin-dao-dissolves-99-66-vote-apeco-transition-2506/) and hand its treasury, intellectual property, and operations to **ApeCo**, a centralized company run by Yuga Labs. A DAO voluntarily voting itself back into a corporation is rare enough to be worth studying closely.

## The APE token and the Yuga orbit

**APE** launched in March 2022 with a fixed supply of **one billion** tokens — the smart contract permits neither minting nor burning, and its `totalSupply` still returned exactly 1,000,000,000 APE when the contract was read on 1 September 2026 — positioned as the shared utility and governance token for the wider Bored Ape ecosystem: BAYC and Mutant Ape (MAYC) NFTs, the [Otherside](https://otherside.xyz/) metaverse, and later ApeChain. Per the launch allocation, set out in ApeCoin's own [whitepaper](https://apecoin.com/api/whitepaper) — a PDF, and the only substantive document apecoin.com still serves — **47%** went to the treasury held by the ApeCoin Foundation, which is now controlled by ApeCo; **15%** was distributed to BAYC, Mutant Ape and Bored Ape Kennel Club holders; **16%** to Yuga Labs and the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation, 15% and 1% respectively; **14%** to early contributors on vesting schedules; and **8%** to Yuga Labs' founders. Crucially, ApeCoin was launched as a token _with_ a DAO attached rather than a protocol that produced fees — the DAO's job was to steward a treasury and fund ecosystem work, not to govern a revenue-generating machine, which shaped both its politics and its eventual undoing.

## How the DAO governed itself

Only APE holders were members. Ideas moved through the **Ape Improvement Proposal (AIP)** pipeline: drafted and debated on the ApeCoin forum, then put to a token-weighted [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/apecoin.eth) vote. Implementation was handled by the **Ape Foundation**, a Cayman-registered administrator, with a five-seat elected **Special Council** (the DAO's "Board") supervising the Foundation's administrators — a [legal-wrapper](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/dao-legal-structures) pattern common to large token DAOs. In January 2025 the DAO even passed [AIP-582](https://cryptoslate.com/yuga-moves-to-kill-apecoin-dao-transfer-168m-in-assets-to-new-entity/) (~93% in favor) to move governance on-chain via **ApeChain**, its Arbitrum-based layer. Yet turnout on most proposals stayed low, and by 2025 core stakeholders — Yuga included — openly described governance as stagnant, a critique that set up the dissolution vote.

## AIP-596: the DAO votes itself out of existence

On 5 June 2025, Yuga Labs CEO Greg Solano filed the proposal that became **AIP-596, "Sunsetting the DAO and Launching ApeCo."** His framing was blunt: what "started with promise has devolved into sluggish, noisy, and often unserious governance theater" that funded ["vanity proposals and low-impact initiatives"](https://decrypt.co/323902/bored-ape-creator-yuga-labs-wants-kill-apecoin-dao) ([CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/06/06/yuga-labs-proposes-scrapping-apecoin-dao-launching-apeco)). The proposal transferred all DAO and Foundation assets — reported at roughly **169 million APE (~$168M at the time)** — plus intellectual property and administrative control to **ApeCo**, a new Yuga-controlled entity focused on three pillars: ApeChain, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Otherside ([CryptoSlate](https://cryptoslate.com/yuga-moves-to-kill-apecoin-dao-transfer-168m-in-assets-to-new-entity/)). It committed to fund the APE staking contract through March 2026 and set aside 10 million APE for transition costs, but otherwise **nullified every prior AIP** not already executed, dissolved all working groups and elections, and shut down the forum. Voting closed on 26 June 2025 with a reported **99.66% in favor** ([AInvest](https://www.ainvest.com/news/apecoin-dao-dissolves-99-66-vote-apeco-transition-2506/)). The ApeCoin forum has since gone offline — a fitting epilogue for a governance body that voted to end itself.

## How Caper approaches this

ApeCoin DAO's ending exposes two structural gaps that made a near-unanimous self-dissolution the path of least resistance. First, there was **no clean per-member exit**: a holder who disliked the direction could sell APE on the open market, but had no way to redeem a proportional share of the DAO's _treasury_ — so the rational move for dissenters was to disengage rather than fight, which is exactly the dynamic our [failure-modes](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/analysis/how-daos-fail) page identifies. Second, low real engagement meant a founder-authored proposal could clear the bar with overwhelming numbers and thin participation. [Caper](/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) is built against both. Every caper's `exit()` lets a member who has voted or traded redeem a pro-rata slice of the treasury at any time, with no proposal or quorum, and that redemption share equals their exact [canonical vote weight](/wiki/governance/voting) `(t·v)/(V·T)` — a blend of the governance stake a member holds and the participation they have actually shown, the latter earned as non-transferable [vote tokens](/wiki/governance/voting) minted one per ballot cast and 0.01 per XRD of gross trade value. A member who wants out leaves with their fair share instead of quietly abandoning the treasury to whoever remains — and because voice is participation-weighted, capturing a caper takes sustained, earned involvement, not a single well-timed vote.